Dragon Age Central

More camcorder footage of combat gameplay: the much seen ogre battle, this time resolved pretty easily by the party members.

The fourth and final direct feed (high quality) video of the gameplay demo given at the Games Convention in Leipzig. Narrated by Dan Tudge [dt]. It has mostly been seen previously in low-quality cam-corder videos, but this is the first time we can very clearly see the inventory system, and what happens immediately after the Ogre in the tower of Ishal is killed. Transcript follows.

[dt] Welcome to episode 4 of the demo for ‘Dragon Age: Origins’: the Tower of Ishal. Now before we head into the tower, we’re going to actually swap out to a hero with a different origin. This one, an elven mage, is going to have a little more firepower. So we’re now in the tower of Ishal, and you can see here’s our elven mage. We still have the rest of our original party, you can see the blood and gore is still on them from the previous battles - this stays with you. By the looks of these barricades up ahead we may be in for a bit of a trap, but we’re going to head in anyway.

You can see our party’s been caught in grease. And that emissary up there, well he’s launched a fireball. That fireball’s lit the grease on fire. Now in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’, spells can interact with each other. So in that vein, we’re going to use our mage, cast ‘Blizzard’, and hopefully put this fire out. So while we were putting out this fire with Blizzard, our advanced party tactics sent our warriors up here and started taking out these darkspawn. At any time you can move from character to character in your party. You can zoom out to tactical where you can issue commands, spells, special abilities... you can stay in this view, just like Baludur’s Gate, or you can zoom right back into the action. Now that pause & play really allows you to get up close and get a great shot of the action.

[new spell descriptions seen:]
Tempest
Cost: 60
The caster creates an intense electrical storm that drains the life and mana/stamina of creatures within it.

Flaming Weapons
Cost: 20
Upkeep: 10
When activated, the primary weapon equipped by each party member is engulfed in flames, dealing additional damage with each hit.

Glyph Of Paralysis
Cost: 20
The caster places a glyph on the ground which, when entered, explodes and paralyses the target for a short time.

Flame Blast
Cost: 15
A cone of fire shoots out from the caster’s hands, setting all creatures within the cone on fire.

[with the help of tempest and the warriors, the emissary is defeated]

[dt] Before we push on forward, we’re actually going to loot this emissary. He’s probably got a few items we could use. [items are dragged from a list of items on the corpse to a list of items held by the whole party; there is a 1000 item limit] We’ll certainly grab this Sword of Ogre Strength and this Flamescale Armor; I think they’re going to help us out later.

Now before we head through this door, we’re going to use a buff on our entire party this time. It’s called ‘Flaming Weapons’, and it’s going to add fire damage to all our weapons. We’re going to use the warrior to go through the door first. Now this room’s full of Hurlocks. These guys are a little more difficult. So we’re going to use a different tactic. This time we’re going to use ‘Glyph of Paralysis’, and hopefully we’ll freeze up one of these Hurlocks. Now we’re going to hit ‘em with ‘Flame Blast’. This is a devastating spell, so you’re going to have to be very very careful where you point it. Now clearly in this encounter the flaming weapons really helped out.

You can see our artists have taken a lot of effort in making sure that these environments are absolutely stunning. They’re very very proud of their work. Now that tower guard mentioned that the darkspawn may be coming up from the lower chambers; clearly this hole, it’s one of their entry points. Now earlier we mentioned that spells in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ can interact with each other. We saw the emissary light the grease on fire with a fireball. We’re going to try the same thing; we’re going to cast grease, and then light it on fire. And what we’re really talking about are spell combos. In ‘Dragon Age: Origins’, you can use spells together to create new devastating effects. Many of these will be documented, but a lot, you’re going to have to experiment with, and find out for yourself. Not sure if I like the sound of what’s behind that door, but we got a beacon to light, so let’s push on forward.

[mini ogre-meeting cutscene plays]

This is one of our more devastating creatures: the Ogre. Creatures like this are going to come with all their own unique abilities: Ogre hurl, pound... we’ve got Ogre grab (this is my particular favourite) - this is where he literally grabs a member of your party and pounds them. We’re going to have to throw everything we’ve got at this Ogre just to take him down. These encounters are going to be intense. They’re going to take every talent, every spell, every tactic you’ve learned.

[the ogre defeats all but one of the party members, then uses grab on him... then alistair is released and manages to defeat the ogre with a finishing move, with just a few percent health left]

Dark, heroic fantasy people, we don’t pull any punches here. Now we’ve got a beacon to light. Let’s see what happens.

[cut scene plays of loghain seeing the beacon, then another ogre grabbing king cailan before a fade to black]

[dt] So today you saw scalable combat, where you are always the hero. And through the story of the battle of Ostagar, you saw the decisions you made changed the way you perceived the world, and the way the world perceives you. And you saw Bioware’s return to it’s roots, with ‘Dragon Age: Origins’.

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The third of four direct feed (high quality) videos of the gameplay demo given at the Games Convention in Leipzig. Narrated by Dan Tudge [dt]. This part contains the battle cutscene seen many times before, and the run up to the tower, also seen before in low-quality shaky cam version. Transcript follows.

[dt] Welcome to ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ episode 3. This is where the action really starts to ramp.

[battle cut-scene plays]

[duncan] The plan will work, your majesty.

[king cailan] Of course it will, the Blight ends here.

[cut scene continues: the blight rush the king’s camp]

[king cailan] Archers!... Hounds!... For Ferelden!

[cut scene ends, player runs across a bridge toward the tower of ishal]

[dt] The battle of Ostagar is underway.

[guard] Help me, they’re everywhere. They’ve taken the... you, you’re Grey Wardens, aren’t you? The tower, it’s been taken.

[alistair] What are you talking about man, taken how?

[guard] The dark spawn came up through the lower chambers and they’re everywhere. Most of my men are dead.

[alistair] Then we have to get to the beacon and light it ourselves.

[player choice 1] Come with us. We could use your help. [chosen]
[player choice 2] Get yourself to safety. Alisair and I will handle this.
[player choice 3] Just point us in the right direction.

[guard] Right, let’s hurry.

[dt] You’ll notice how easily we added this tower guard to our party. This choice is entirely ours. You’ll be faced with many choices like this in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’. My guess is, being a tower guard, he may not make it. We’re about to have our first combat. With the evolution of pause & play, you can pause the action at any time. Now before we head into battle we’re going to use a special ability called a ‘talent’ on our warrior. This one’s ‘Berserk’, it’s going to send him into a frenzy at a cost of stamina. It’s time to take out some darkspawn.

[party battles a group of genlocks]

‘Dragon Age: Origins’ is focused on mature themes, and you can see by this action, we don’t pull any punches here. Now before we engage these darkspawn up this platform, we’re going to actually make use of a couple of additional talents: this one called ‘Shield Bash’, which is just that, and another one called assault, which is a flurry of four blows.

[also seen:]
Shield Pummel
Cost: 30
The character unbalances his target with a well aimed main hand attack, then slams his target with two powerful blows from his shield.

You can see these are very effective talents. For a warrior, effectively using your talents is going to be key to victory in any combat situation. Next time you’ll get to see the tower of Ishal, and our endeavour to complete the mission and light the beacon send Loghain’s troops into battle to crush the darkspawn.

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The second of two camcorder videos of the gameplay demonstration given at PAX. (The first is here.) This video comprises the same part of the demo shown at Gen Con as the end of this video and the previously seen ogre battle.

[battle cut-scene plays]

[duncan] The plan will work, your majesty.

[king cailan] Of course it will, the Blight ends here.

[cut scene continues: the blight rush the king’s camp]

[king cailan] Archers!... Hounds!... For Ferelden!

[presenter] The Battle of Ostagar has begun! Dragon Age contains combat from small party skirmishes all the way up to large scale fights like this. Right, get on the bridge here and expect to see how the troops are doing, but no... zoom out a little bit... but we have to get to the Tower of Ishal, complete our own mission. We’re going to jump ahead now and show off some of the other features...

That glow you just saw was a healing spell cast by our mage. We’re fighting the magic user, the Genlock Emissary... healing himself... shield bash... [genlock dies] Now that will allow us to do one of the other four things in a fantasy RPG, that’s loot the dead enemies. There’s a sword of Ogre strength, we’ll take that, and ‘Flamescale armour’ is better than what we have right now. We’re going to open up Alistair’s inventory, we’re going to do some quick changes... there we go... and the sword of Ogre strength. That fight went pretty well, but I think things are going to get tougher, so I want the mage to cast that will enhance the entire party, called ‘Flaming Weapons’. Notice that all the primary weapons in our party now will do extra flame damage. We’re immune to it, but our enemies are not.

Got some Hurlocks there, ok, these guys are tougher. We’re going to get into position here, we’ve got a couple out coming in the corner there. I wanna use the mage to cast another spell called ‘Glyph of Paralysis’, which should hopefully root them to the spot. If not - looks like we missed them - we can use
a spell called ‘Flame Blast’; gotta be careful because it will damage your party, remember? Looks like the flaming weapons are doing their job. Another Flame Blast. Let’s take a moment here to look at some of the architecture cooked up by Bioware artists and designers. Anybody who’s played NeverWinter Nights will be pleased to see that we have ceilings now. Ok, let’s keep going.

I like that, I want to use it again for them. [mage casts two spells at enemies:] There’s ‘Grease’. There’s the ‘Fireball’. Now, our enthusiastic party will charge in [to the grease fire covering the floor]. Think they might need a little healing after this, for all the enthusiasm. Now this stair case leads up to the last room in the Tower of Ishal. Let’s do it.

[party encounters ogre in mini-cut-scene]

The large monsters in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’. He has his own talents like ‘Ogre Hurl’ [...?...] There’s ‘Ogre Pound’, knocked down the party that was surrounding him there. A pretty tough customer. ‘Ogre Charge’, right over one of our party members. There’s a kick. Spell caster’s using ‘Tempest’. There’s a fireball [...?...]. We’re running out of party members here; just the spell caster and Alistair now. Uh-oh, that’s ‘Ogre Grab’. Spell caster wisely healing Alistair. The mage is going to have to distract the Ogre for a bit. Alistair’s taking a beating, but he keeps getting healed by the magic user, which has now drawn the attention of the Ogre. [mage dies] How we doing, Scot?... [alistair is caught by ogre grab] Live demonstrations... yeah. [alistair kills the ogre and the special animation plays] That was the ultimate death blow. Now lets light the signal beacon. [video cuts out]

The first part of 2 camcorder recordings of the gameplay demo seen at PAX this year. There are early main plot and side-quest spoilers, but nothing too significant. It features the first video footage of Morrigan. Transcript follows.

[king cailan] We’re not even sure this is a true Blight. There were plenty of darkspawn but, alas, we’ve seen no sign of an archdeamon.

[duncan] Disappointed your majesty?

[king cailan] I’d hope for a war like in the tales. Yet a King riding with the fleet with Grey Wardens against a tainted God… but I suppose this will have to do. I must go before Loghain sends out a search party. Farewell, Grey Wardens.

[prisoner] I’m a deserter, or so they think. But there’s no arguing with [...?...]. Army’s are funny that way.

[player makes a choice]

[prisoner] I wasn’t a deserter, but when you catch someone sneaking around in the middle of the night, what else are you going to think? Does it matter? All I want is a bit of food and water.

[player makes a choice]

[prisoner] Just ask my guard for his. He’s still got some dinner. I saw him put it in his camp.

[presenter] So, instead of electing to murder him on the spot, we’re going to try to see if we can find him some food, starting with the guard here.

[guard] Lucky tart. You Grey Wardens get to ride with the King while I’m left with the drudgery of guarding this deserter. They should have just hanged him; put his head on a pike as an example.

[player makes a choice]

[guard] I don’t expect it was an enlightening conversation.

[player makes a choice]

[guard] Did you now? Since nobody sends me nothing to feed him with, the only way you’ll get that is if I give him mine.

[player makes a choice]

[guard] Alright, alright. I guess the poor fellow could stand to have one meal before he’s hanged. Though I don’t know why you’d care. I had nothing to do with it though – if anyone asks why he’s burping, I’m going to say it was you. Just so you know.

[presenter] So, I’m also playing a character with a high persuade skill, I’ve convinced the guard the prisoner some food.

[prisoner] Oh? You’ve brought me some food then? I’m so hungry I could faint dead away.

[player makes a choice]

[prisoner] Much obliged. You’re a kind soul, you are. May Andraste herself rain blessings upon you.

[presenter] There you go. You did a very good deed, you gave him some food; feel good about ourselves. Did you notice something that was missing? ⌊he refers to the alternate course of events seen in this demo⌉ Didn’t find out about the key, didn’t know that he had it on him, didn’t get any of the stuff that might have been in that treasure chest. You make a lot of moral choices in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’, sometimes they don’t pay off. Just because you’re the good guy, or just because you’re the bad guy, maybe it doesn’t pay off in the end. So, you just have to make those choices.

It’s real-time, however you can pause, you can zoom out for a more tactical view - you should recognise this from playing a bit of Baldurs Gate. Check out what the enemy is doing. You can cast spells, use your talents, issue commands. You can run the whole fight from here, or you can zoom in, pop into the other party member, so you’re always in the thick of battle, make use of talents. Speaking of talents, let’s use one of the Warrior talents, that’s our character class, called ‘Berserk’: makes us very strong at the cost of stamina.

So the Hurlocks are coming now. I wanna show off another one of the Warrior talents called ‘Shield Bash’. If done correctly and it’s not resisted, it will actually knock an opponent to the floor. We can follow that up with something called ‘Assault’, which is four quick strikes. There’s a Hurlock Alpha there, much tougher opponent, you can see he’s using his own talents... felled by an arrow! Switch over to one of our party members there to continue; I think we’ll have to get everyone involved in close quarters combat, so I’m going to switch to Jory there, who’s using the bow, and switch out for sword & shield... there we go. Now we’re going to bring the combat to them. Looks like we’ve got two more archers to deal with - you see up in the mini-map here, help to sort things out... one more archer, we’ll make short work of him. So if there’s any healing to do, the mage can do that... oh, we don’t have a mage, that’s right.

Ok, we’re going to keep going, we’re going to show you a character who hasn’t been seen before as well, her name is Morrigan. Sort of a mysterious character, there’s been a bit of speculation about what she is. This is actually the first time that you will meet her in the game.

[morrigan] Well well, what have we here? Are you a vulture, I wonder, a scavenger poking amongst the corpses for bones that are long since cleaned. Or merely an intruder, come into this Dark Spawn [...?...] easy prey.

[presenter] So we’re not going to talk too much about her today. Just wanted to show her off a little bit. Actually going to jump ahead a little bit further. But if you look [... video cuts out]

‘Musashi’ from the yellow-menace website posted this video taken at GenCon on his camcorder. It features a demo of the game, showing off certain aspects of gameplay. It contains minor sidequest and early main-plot spoilers.

This is the second part of a set of three videos, the first is here and the last is here. Transcript follows.

[the demo starts with the side quest involving a prisoner, chosen because of its simplicity and speed of resolution. the player faces a man trapped in a cage.]

[prisoner] But it’s come back into my possession
[player makes a choice]
[prisoner] Yeah, well, do you want the key or not?

[presenter] ... just little bits of humour every now and then offsets the dark and gritty. But here’s a great example of choice. Now, the choice of what to do with this guy is up to you. Perhaps you’re a more noble player, you want to help this poor guy, give him a little water, or maybe you’re a little darker, a little more sinister, you’re more interested in maybe getting the key for yourself, trying to find that chest... the way you want to play is totally up to you. Anybody have preferences on which way we want to go?

[player option 1] I’ll see what I can do.
[player option 2] Ill tkat that. (kill him and take the key.)
[player option 3] Forget it. I need to go.

[audience] Kill him!

[presented] We have yet to do a demo where we do not kill him. [laughter]

[prisoner] You can’t do that! Guards!

[the player approaches the cage, drawing a small dagger, before knifing the defenceless prisoner in the gut and walking away]

[guard] What? What in Andrasteys[?] name did you do that for? Just because you’re a Grey Warden doesn’t give you the right to go and kill anyone you please. Explain yourself.

[player option 1] He lunged at me. I had to defend myself.
[player option 2] He spit on me. He got what he deserved.
[player option 3] I don’t have to explain myself to you. [chosen]

[guard] You’ll have to explain yourself to someone. Well, no skin off my teeth. When they ask me why he’s dead, that’s what I’ll tell them.

[presenter] We got a simple response in this case, the guard is almost happy the prisoner is dead. Now he can go off and have a drink or some hot food. But this is the kind of choice that can come back to haunt you later on. Although the guard’s fine with what’s happened, perhaps someone else you might encounter later in the game is going to have a few more questions for you. The decisions you make will have lasting repercussions. Now we can continue on and explore through the camp, but I’m going to have Jason jump to another area further on into the story.

By this point we’ve been exploring out here in the swamps, called the Korcari Wilds; lots of different areas for you to explore in Dragon Age, we’ve got ruins, dungeons, wastelands, cities, all the classic RPG experiences. You’ve now become a Grey Warden, you can tell he’s wearing the Dragon Age shield on his back, the Grey Wardens’. It’s the night before battle here at the King’s camp, you’re going to go talk to King Cailan and his trusted adviser Loghain to find out what role you’re going to play in the battle ahead. So Jason, move ahead and talk to the King.

[king cailan] Loghain, my descision is final. I will stand by the Grey Wardens in this assault.

[loghain] You risk too much Cailan. The dark spawn horde is too dangerous for you to be playing hero on the front lines.

[king cailan] If that’s the case, perhaps we should wait for the Orlesian forces to join us afterall.


[loghain] I must repeat my protest to your fool notion that we need the Orlesians to defend ourselves.

[king cailan] It is not a fool notion. Our arguments with the Orlesians are a thing of the past. And you will remember who is King.

[loghain] How fortunate Maric did not live to see his son ready to hand Ferelden over to those who enslaved us for a centuray.

[king cailan] Then our current forces will have to suffice, won’t they? Duncan, are your men ready for battle?

[duncan] They are, your majesty.

[king cailan] And this [the player] is the recruit I met earlier on the road? I understand congratulations are in order.

[player option 1] Thank you your Majesty. [chosen]
[player option 2] I didn’t have a choice, really.
[player option 3] I don’t feel that special.

[king cailan] Every Grey Warden is needed now. You should be honoured to join their ranks.

[loghain] Your fascination with glory and legends will be your undoing, Cailan. We must attend to reality.

[king cailan] Fine, speak your strategy. The Grey Wardens and I draw the dark spawn into charging our lines, then?

[loghain] You [the player] will alert the tower to light the beacon signaling my men to charge from...

[king cailan] To fight the dark spawn. I remember. This [pointing to a map on a table] is the tower of Ishal in the ruins, yes? Well who shall light this beacon?

[loghain] I have a few men stationed there; it’s not a dangerous task, but it is vital.

[king cailan] Then we should send our best. Send Alistair, the new Grey Warden, to make sure it’s done.

[player makes a choice]

[loghain] You rely on these Grey Wardens too much. Is that truly wise?

[king cailan] Enough of your conspiracy theories Loghain. Grey wardens battle the Blight no matter where they’re from.

[duncan] Your majesty, you should consider the possibility of the Arch Demon appearing.

[loghain] There have been no signs of any dragons in the Wilds.

[king cailan] Isn’t that what your men are here for Duncan?

[duncan] I... Yes, your majesty.

[mage] Your majesty, the tower and its beacon are unnecessary. The circle of magi...

[priestess] We will not trust any lives to your spells, mage. Save them for the dark spawn.

[loghain] Enough, this plan will suffice. The Grey Wardens will light the beacon.

[king cailan] Thank you Loghain. I cannot wait for that glorious moment. The Grey Wardens battle beside the King of Ferelden to battle the tide of evil.

[loghain] Yes, Cailan. A glorious moment for us all.

[presenter] So now we know our role in the battle. We have to reach the tower of Ishal, we’re going to light the signal fire so Loghain knows to sweep in and defeat the dark spawn. We have our two party

members with us: we have Alistair a talented Grey Warden - well equipped to help us get through any locked doors we might encounter. Again the party interaction, totally up to you who you’re going to take. You can have a [?] party of people you’re going to encounter in the game, some will want to come with you, some may not depending on the choices you make throughout the gameplay. But now we’ve got our party, we’re going to go ahead and join the battle of Ostegar.

[as the player crosses a certain trigger point, a cutscene plays]

[duncan] The plan will work, your majesty.

[king cailan] Of course it will, the Blight ends here.

[cut scene continues: the blight rush the king’s camp]

[king cailan] Archers! ... Hounds! ... For Ferelden!

[presenter] There we go, the battle has begun, remember our mission was to reach the tower of Ishal, light the signal fires for Loghain. [?] through the camp, trying to avoid all the dangers along the way. [...?...] there certainly going to be some large combat you’ll be taking part of Dragon Age: Origins, small party encounters right up to massive epic battles. [...?...] we’d better keep moving.

[guard] You’re Grey Wardens are you? The tower, it’s been taken.

[alistair] What are you talking about man, taken how?

[guard] The dark spawn came up through the lower chambers and they’re everywhere. Most of my men are dead.

[alistair] Then we have to get to the beacon and light it ourselves.

[player makes a choice]

[guard] Right, let’s hurry.

[presenter] So our mission has just become a little harder. We don’t just have to reach the tower, now the tower has been taken by the dark spawn and we have to fight them off. Now we had a party of two people with us. To give us a little extra [?] we can go ahead and add the tower guard here to the party.

Sometimes you get party members [...?...] you can have a lasting impression, you might be able to do a romance with them, or [...?...] story detail. Other times you’re gonna pick up guys like the tower guard, probably a little less important - you can tell by the lack of a first name. But we’re going to go ahead, continue on with the battle... Reach the tower.

[brief cut scene plays of a fierce dark spawn member]

We got a bunch of dark spawn here. So Jason’s going to pause the game here. Now the way you play Dragon Age: Origins is totally going to be up to you. Some players are going to want to pull up your sword, hunt them down and start swinging, that’s fine. Personally that’s the way I play a game. Other people are going to want to take a more tactical approach to the game, as Jason has done: pause the game, pull the camera out, put it in tactical view, rotate it around, so he knows exactly what he’s going to want to do.

The choice is up to you. Now you can also just control the main character like I do, other people are going to want to take a more direct hands-on, you can also individually control the party members should you so choose. The choice is up to you. In this case Jason’s going to focus on the main PC, he’s a melee fighter-based character. So we’re going to go ahead and use our sword and shield in battle, and we’re going to start off with some of the talents and abilities of the player. The first one we’re going to go through is ‘Berserk’. Berserk allows you to do more damage in combat, however it comes at a cost of stamina. All the choices you make in Dragon Age: Origins you’re going to have little desicions for you. Do a little more damage but get tired easier. The choice is up to you. Jason’s activating ‘Berserk’. The party has a good AI system [the party members run out in front and start attacking whilst the pc activates his talent], they already know [...?...] to attack the enemy. We’ve got a group of Genlocks here. Genlocks are sort of smallish foot soldies with the dark spawn. Also got a Hurlock here, Hurlocks are a little tougher, but fortunately there’s four of us here in battle. Next we’re going to go up the rise, looks like we’ve got another Hurlock, it’s going to be a lot tought up here, so what Jason’s going to do here, he’s going to start off with a ‘Shield Bash’. Shield Bash is exactly what it sounds like - attack with the shield to try and stun the opponent or knock him down. Then he’s going to follow it up with ‘Assualt’. Assault is a series of [?] fast attacks, doing a lot of damage. [...?...]

Here we are now at the base of the tower or Ishal. Before we go inside, we’re going to change things up a little for you. We’ve been playing a melee class human fighter, we’re going to show off another key feature in Dragon Age: Origins, and that’s magic. [load game screen comes up, the interface looking like an open book] Magic is a key part of a good role-playing game, a fantasy game; we’re going to go ahead and change to a character with a different origin story: instead of a human male we’re going to play an elven female. [loading screen is a picture of a genlock] Here’s a quick close-up of a genlock for you, one of the dark spawn. Magic is extremely powerful and a little mistrusted in the world of Dragon Age: Origins. Mages have a lot of power and have to be controlled very tightly. [party is inside the tower, by the entrance as the camera moves around them] There she is in the front row, that’s Cathrielda, our elven mage. We also have three party members with us still from before in the battle outside, that won’t be able to be [?] off until after the battle is over. We’re going to move into the room with Enetio[?] first, always send a fighter in first, just in case. Here comes some barricades set up, it looks like it’s going to be a trap. We also have a powerful magic user called a genlock up ahead who’s cast a magic spell called ‘Grease’; slowed our movement rate and trapped us a little bit. He’s also cast off a fireball. One of the key features of magic in Dragon Age: Origins is magic interacts with each other. Now watch what happens when fire meets grease. [the grease catches fire and the fighter is knocked back and burns, then the player takes control of the mage and moves her into the room] [...?...] here has a spell called ‘Blizzard’, a [?] of ice, snow and cold making a blizzard to put out the fire. Some combinations are going to be very obvious to you, others you’ll have to discover as you play the game. Even without direct control the party’s intelligent enough to continue to [?], attacking [...?...]. There’s the Emissary waiting by the [?], he’s a pretty powerful magic user and has managed to freeze Alistair twice. [...?...] This battle’s usually very tough, we’ve run this demo a number of times and the Emissary is a powerful magic user... [the enemy mage is stunned and two party members get the advantage]... but we managed to defeat him.

Now you can see that now that the initial combat is over, the party members that have fallen in battle, they’re not actually dead, they’re just wounded to the point of not being able to assist. Once the battle is over they will come back and they will be less effective until you’re able to heal them. Unless the entire party dies, if the entire party dies you’re loading saved games. Now that everyone’s healed up, we’re going to the next great system of any true RPG, and that’s looting corpses. Everybody likes a little extra treasure, a little extra gold, a little extra magical item. [loot/inventory screen is list-based and looks like an open book] [...?...] we’re going to go ahead and equipe those, put them on Alistair, make him tougher for the battles up ahead. [...?...] Before we go to the next area, that last area was a light tough, we’ll get Jason this time to buff the entire party by cast off a spell called ‘Flaming Weapons’. This spell - the party is [...?...] - but it’s going to add fire damage to our weapons in the next area. Now that the party’s buffed up we can head through the door and see what’s on the other side.

Ok [...?...] Hurlocks in here, so what Jason’s going to do is move to a safe point so the mage isn’t in the middle of everything [a melee fight in the center of the room], he’s going to try and freeze some of the Hurlocks in place with Paralysis. And here’s another powerful spell called ‘Flame Blast’, which essentially turns your staff into a massive flame thrower... getting ready to cast the spell... there it goes [two enemies in the line of fire drop dead]. Once again, magic very powerful. If you’re not pointing your staff in the right direction, you’re going to be roasting your own party. That’s something you need to be aware of whilst you’re playing the game. So the Hulocks are done for this room, you can see some environments of the interior inside the tower. Now do we have any Neverwinter Nights players here? You may notice something we didn’t include in Neverwinter Nights: we’ve got ceilings in Dragon Age: Origins. [laughter] We’re going to continue on, no time for ceilings, move to the next room.

This room looks empty, it’s obviously the tunnel they came up into the tower through. Let’s move on into the next area. [...?...] in this room we’ve the party taking on one really close, but we can go ahead and take them out at range with the same spell they used against us when we arrived. Now Jason’s going to cast Grease, you can position the [?] for most effect, it’s your choice. She’s going to light it with a fireball. [the distant enemies cought in the two spells quickly escape the conflagration and rush to the party to engage them in melee] The party members are smart enough not to run into the fire, the tower guard as I said, the three levels of NPCs, [...?...] but really, if you really wanted to, you could send your party in to take the damage, relying on the healing magics of your caster. Totally up to you. Well, we’ve managed to defeat the Genlocks here in the lower area, we have to [...?...] through this door. I’m hearing some unsettling noises on the other side of this door. Maybe at this point, if this mission wasn’t so vital, I might just back off. Might say to myself, go get some armour, maybe I’ll go do a romance. I’ll go do one of my other subquests or something. In this case the mission’s too vital [video cuts off short]

G4 interview Greg Zeschuk (GZ) at E3 2008. As the interview progresses we see an expanded view of the first-floor battle seen in the first 3m direct-feed gameplay video from Bioware that briefly shows the inventory UI.

The inventory shows items as a list on the right-facing page of a book, with the ‘paper-doll’ of the character and various item slots on the left-facing page. There are 12 slots which might correspond to head, weapon, neck, body, legs, feet, quiver, shield, second weapon, unknown, ring and ring.


Interview transcript follows:

G4: All right, please welcome the co-general manager of Bioware, Dr. Greg Zeschuk. Bioware! Come on! All right, so, what’s initially notable about this is that we’re dealing with a PC game. So you guys are getting back, getting your hands dirty on that. And it’s a fantasy game that is not from Dungeons & Dragons: it’s your own creation.

GZ: Yup, ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ is really a return to Bioware’s roots. That’s one of or part of the ‘Origins’ name, or what it means to us. And it’s really us going back to what we did with the classic formulae in Baldur’s Gate years ago, bringing it up-to-date in terms of technology and what we’re delivering is going to blow people away.

G4: Now, for those people - and there some young folk out there - that haven’t played the great Baldur’s Gate, what is that type of combat that you’re returning to?

GZ: What you’re seeing on screen right now is... I’m starting out with one of my guys - I’ve got a party of four so it’s a party based game - and what happens is you can control the actions of all of your party. You’ll see here this guy is going to get stuck in kind of a... this guy is going to cast a spell at him... pause it play... you can pull back... here stuck in some grease which is going to lit on fire. The whole game is actually very tactical and you actually control the characters and what they do at every moment - your entire group and plan it almost like a chess match.

G4: Now, will you be moving one character’s directions and the others follow you? How will you be managing all four?

GZ: You decide. You can actually program the AI, you can actually have them follow you, you can have them act as a group, you can have ‘plays’ you can call. You’re seeing right now this is the classic Baldur’s Gate view - the top-down isometric so you can really control the tactics. So the cool thing then... and then you can jump in and enjoy... what we’re doing here is the mage is about to throw a blizzard on top of that fire, put it out... pause the game here... about to turn it off, you can see her [person playing the demo] kind of coming back [moving the camera back], make sure you put the spell in the right place - you’re seeing choosing which spell or which talent to use; she’s going to cast a spell and pop it back into the action and let it rip. So here we go. She’s put out the fire... blizzard’s put out the fire, the guys can run through, we’ll show some other guys fighting... It’s very engaging both from a combat perspective but also emotionally and in the dialogue and everything else.

G4: Now yeah, that’s what I wanted to get to. Obviously with Mass Effect you have perfected the art of story-telling inside of a game - are we going to see similar techniques that you used there inside of Dragon Age?

GZ: A lot of the technology is the same, like that same face technology, same realistic characters that we had: it creates this emotionally engaging experience. The world of Dragon Age is very serious - heavy world, you know it’s an ‘M’-rated game, lot of blood, lot of really serious situations - you know, that’s just what the team wanted to build.

G4: Now, in terms of how the story goes, does it branch enough that you would like to see people play repeated times to find different surprises?

GZ: Absolutely. And the way the game starts is something called an ‘Origins’ story and that’s a very special personal thing that you experience that is the lens through which you see the world and also how the world sees you. And you really do choose if you’re going to be a hero, a martyr or a tyrant.

G4: And I want to make sure that you guys get your own ‘props’: you’re not using the Unreal engine as you did with Mass Effect, this is your own technology?

GZ: Yeah, absolutely, the team - just call out the Dragon Age team they’re awesome, a lot of folks at Bioware worked on this engine. You know, it’s a little bit different style of engine than what we did with Mass Effect and obviously we built upon the Unreal engine in that case; this is really designed to support all the data and all the information you have in an RPG.

G4: Now, I guess the other question is when do you think we might be playing it?

GZ: Well this is a little bit different than our usual style which is when we announce the game, show it for a number of years... what we did is we announced it a while back, kind of let it stew, fans got excited; we’re showing it here, it’s totally playable, guys can play it in our booth, and the exciting thing is it’s coming early 2009 which is not far away.

G4: Wow, well that’s great. Listen, since I have you here, anything about Mass Effect or KotOR?

GZ: I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. I know we’re talking about this Mass Effect stuff, but you know I’m kinda... I’m losing... I... I... I’ve had a long day and my memory is really kinda weak right now; I’ve kind of lost it, sorry.

G4: Well all right. I’m coming up to Edmonton and going to sleep outside of the offices. Greg, thank you so much for coming. It is an honour, always to be with the men from Bioware.

On the same day that it was shown to the press at E3 so they could write their preview articles based on it, Chris Priestly (Community Communications Coordinator) and Jay Watamaniuk (Community Manager) provided a treat for fans by uploading the 3 minute gameplay video to a ‘secret’ area of their website.

It features brief cuts of walking around in various locations, a scene of dialogue with King Cailan, but the focus is on the battle with the ogre seen in some of the E3 screenshots. The zoom level is changed throughout the video, showing off over-the-shoulder gameplay and more traditional top-down-tactical gameplay.

Detailed description and transcript follows:

[camera rotates around a male human fighter with round shield and sword strapped to his back]

[outdoors, the pc approaches a woman orating on a stage]
[woman] ... the death that may await. Death is no failure my friends. Should it find you, you will not have failed your king. You will have served your maker. Die in this....

[a different male fighter pc runs down a street at night. cuts to a dialogue scene, camera close over the shoulder of the pc, as king cailan addresses him]
[king cailan] Every Grey Warden is needed now. You should be honoured to join their ranks.

[pc is atop a wall as a battle rages somewhere below. an explosion damages people]
[off-screen voice] Release the hounds!

[a party of 4 characters (classes: rogue, warrior, wizard, ? another warrior ?) enters the tower of ishal]

[they arrive at a burning grease fire on the ground. the game is paused, the camera moves and pans about, the centre of the fire is targeted and the wizard in the party casts a ‘blizzard’ spell to put the fire out.]

Blizzard
Cost: 30
The caster conjures a vicious snowstorm to cover a large area around the designated lcoation. Within seconds of finishing the spell, the ground becomes slippery due to ice, reducing enemy movement. Enemies inside the area take cold damage increasing as the storm gains intensity. Any creatures still within the area of effect when the storm reaches it’s height are frozen solid.

[meanwhile the rogue and the warrior fight a genloc, which at one point is stunned before being killed by the party]

[another fight ensues against more enemies. one of the characters is able to resist some enemy effect. the wizard casts a grease spell covering the floor with grease before casting ‘fireball’ to kill the genlocs]

Grease
Cost: 25
The caster causes a large area around the designated location to become slippery with oily slick. Movement within the area of effect is slowed. If a fire is brought into the oil slick, it can set it on fire.

Fireball
Cost: 25
The caster hurls a flaming projectile towards the target location, spawning a large explosion on impact. Creatures caught within the blast immediately take major fire damage and continue to burn for a short duration.

[the party reaches the top floor of the tower and rush in, but halt in surprise as they come across the ogre, who is seen from behind eating some poor creature]

[after the cut-scene introducing the ogre is over, it promptly picks up one of the party members and starts beating him as the other party members try to kill the ogre.]

[as the battle progresses the wizard casts lighting and healing spells, and other are revealed.]

Shock
Cost: 15
The caster shoots an arc of electricity from this hands. Any target caught in the area of effect receives moderate lighting damage and mana/stamina drain.

Lighting
Cost: 40
The caster unleashes a powerful bolt of electricity, dealing a high amount of damage to the target.

Winters Grasp
Cost: 15
A medium damage cold attack especially effective against fire based creatures.

[clearly a difficult battle, eventually all but a warrior is left standing, but with one final cut, the ogre is defeated with a spray of blood and a brutal finishing move that involves the warrior leaping on to the orgre’s body and administering a coup-de-grâce. during this animation the other party members get back on their feet, revived, and afterwards the wizard casts some more healing spells on the warrior.]

Variants

• t_dragonageorigins_e32k8_gp_h264.flv
  53.9MB 960x540 3m1s vp6f (slightly lower resolution, much smaller file size, FLV)